Monday, 10 December 2012

Flourless Chocolate Mountain Cake

Greetings my gluten-free friends! Today I am here to present you with my most favorite creation of all time... my very own birthday cake! For a few details on the momentous occasion, more photos, and for the alternate recipe which contains dairy, but is still equally gluten-free, check out the post on Yammie's Noshery.

Recipe Notes:

You may have noticed that the layers at the top of
the cake are thicker than the bottom layers. This is because I got
tired of baking all the layers and did the final half of the cake in
three layers instead of five.

You can divide the batter into as many layers as you want, but you cannot cut the layers in half
after they have been baked. It's like trying to cut a cheesecake into
layers and is impossible.

Also, this cake is made doubling the
recipe below. You really should need more than that because it's very
rich and should be served in much thinner slices than shown for common
folk. If you want to have it as tall as a mountain though, go ahead and
make a double batch. It might not all fit in your mixing bowl though, so
beware. I made two separate batches.

I will hopefully do a post on chocolate curls someday, but for now, all
you need to know is that I melted chocolate chips into a brick, let them
harden and then used a potato peeler to make curls.

I only used 1/2 cup of coconut oil and 1/2 cup of vegetable oil because it's so expensive and I don't like to use too much. The hint of coconut flavor comes through great with just 1/2 cup anyways. Feel free to add some coconut extract too if you want it really coconutty.

Flourless Chocolate Mountain Cake

Attention: To make a cake as tall as mine, you'll have to double this recipe!

Preheat
the oven to 350ºF. Grease three to five 8 inch cake pans (depending on
how many layers you want) and line with parchment paper.
Melt the oils and chocolate chips in the microwave or on the stove top.
Meanwhile
beat together the eggs and sugar for about five minutes at high speed
until pale and more than doubled in volume. Add the coffee and vanilla
to the eggs and beat until combined. Sift in the cocoa and salt and mix
again until combined. Stream in the melted chocolate and oil and beat
until combined. Divide into prepared cake pans and bake for about 15-25
minutes or until toothpick comes out with some crumbs attached but no
longer wet.

For the ganache, melt together the
chocolate and 3/4 cup of coconut milk in the microwave. You'll want to
turn the microwave power down to about 30% and stir often or use a
double broiler. You can use the ganache just like this, or you can whip it up a bit for some added volume. Place the bowl of melted chocolate in a larger bowl of ice water and whip until it fluffs up a bit. I would serve it with whipped coconut milk, but I never have any. Sadness.